Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and the Invention of Modern Photojournalism

Collaborating as their subjects did, Aronson and Budhos (Sugar Changed the World) vividly and intimately recount the story of pioneering war photojournalists Robert Capa (1913–1954) and Gerda Taro (1910–1937). Writing in the present tense to heighten the sense of being there, the authors focus primarily on the period when the photographers’ professional and personal lives were almost completely intertwined, from soon after their meeting in 1934 Paris to Taro’s death in Spain three years later. Capa and Taro, Jewish immigrants with leftist leanings from Hungary and Germany, threw themselves into the Spanish Civil War with idealism, talent, intuition as photographers, and an exceptional willingness to take risks. Their photos—whether of fleeing civilians, snipers, refugees, bombed buildings, or soldiers—conveyed an immediacy never previously achieved and established a new standard for war reportage. The authors’ analyses of the Capa-Taro relationship and the influence of their photographs on journalism are particularly strong; they conclude with the 2007 rediscovery of 4,500 negatives lost since the 1940s. Numerous reproductions of Capa and Taro’s work appear throughout, along with maps, a timeline, and other resources. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)